With the dust settled on the big names in free agency, teams are now making smaller moves to fill out their teams and things are really getting interesting in seeing how teams are going to shape up. Today was a big day of moves and here's a recap, starting with the most amazing move of the day so far: the Spurs finally bringing over Tiago Splitter.
The 6'11" Splitter was selected in the first round of the 2007 draft by the Spurs after being led to believe he would be a top 10 pick. Instead, San Antonio wisely drafted him as he fell to 28th overall. Playing in Spain, he has been considered the best big man in Europe and--Spurs fans will love this--he idolized Tim Duncan growing up, so much so that he modeled his game around him. It had been speculated that the Spurs would have to use their entire mid-level exception to entice the 25-year-old to leave behind his Spanish team but instead San Antonio got him to come over for $10 million over three years, with a first year salary of about $3.4 million. That means San Antonio still has about $2.4 million to use to sign another piece, probably a veteran player late in his career. One option that makes sense: Raja Bell, a tough perimeter defender, something the Spurs didn't really have last season after Bruce Bowen retired. And if Splitter can come in and make a big difference quickly, maybe the Spurs do have one more run in them, especially since he will be counted on to ease Duncan's workload.
Elsewhere, to the surprise of absolutely no one, Derek Fisher rejected overtures from the Heat and stayed with the Lakers. But Miami was busy anyway and so much for LeBron James, Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh eating up all of their cap space. Somehow, Miami convinced Udonis Haslem to re-sign for less than both Denver and Dallas offerend him and also officially added Mike Miller. Seems LeBron is heavily recruiting players to join Miami and the great Brian Windhorst of the Cleveland Plain Dealer quotes a league executive as saying "LeBron has done more recruiting in the last five days than he did in the last three years." I'm sure that's music to Dan Gilbert's ears. Ira Winderman, who covers the Heat for the Sun-Sentinel, breaks down the team's roster and shows just where the team is headed in terms of its full roster. We'll see if all of these guys will take peanuts to sign on but it seems likely that Zydrunas Ilgauskas and Juwan Howard would. Of course, both of those players are pretty much terrible at this point.
Moving on, Orlando is about to sign Quentin Richardson, a three-point specialist who could be just the sort of spot-up shooter needed for those Dwight Howard double-teams. Does that mean the Magic, despite initial claims to the contrary, won't match the offer sheet J.J. Redick signed with Chicago?
The Jazz, meanwhile, appear on the verge of acquiring Al Jefferson from Minnesota for draft picks, absorbing Jefferson's salary into the trade exception they received when Carlos Boozer left for Chicago. Jefferson hasn't been a difference-maker yet in his career but has put up points with bad teams in Boston (leading him to be the central figure in the Kevin Garnett trade) and Minnesota. He's younger and cheaper than Boozer. I like this pickup for Utah, should it go down, and it's good for Jefferson because it's stupid for a team to have both he and Kevin Love.
So plenty's happening in the most interesting offseason in NBA history.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment